A total of 813 acres area in Golaganj, Wazeerganj, JC Bose, Peer Zaleel, Laxmi Bai, Hazratganj, Yaadunath Sanyal and Nishatganj wards would be developed from these funds.

In yet another step towards making Lucknow smart, the centre has released the second instalment of Rs 119 crore for the smart city project.

The state capital has already received Rs 132 crore as first instalment of the project.

However, the work could not gather much pace because of the assembly elections.

Now, even when the local body elections are round the corner, the officials associated with the project insist the work will be initiated soon and undertaken on a war footing.

Officials said the released fund have been earmarked for retrofitting work in the Qaiserbagh area. “Around seven wards will be benefited with the funds released by the centre,” said an official.

A total of 813 acres area in Golaganj, Wazeerganj, JC Bose, Peer Zaleel, Laxmi Bai, Hazratganj, Yaadunath Sanyal and Nishatganj wards would be developed from these funds.

“For retrofitting of the Qaiserbagh area, a whopping Rs 1400 crore have been earmarked. Out of which, Rs 251 crore have already been released in two instalments,” said PK Srivastava, additional municipal commissioner.

Under retrofitting plan, while all the electricity lines would go underground, drains and sewer lines in 3.2 km area would also be laid again.

Similarly, while trenches would be dug up for shifting of communication lines, the Green Gas Limited will dig the road for PNG gas connection to every household.

“The Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) has also decided to fix sensors to get the information about overflowing sewer lines so that they can be cleaned on time,” said SK Jain, chief engineer, Smart City projects.

Talking to Hindustan Times, Jain said, “The LMC will fix 315 sensors so that the maintenance of sewer lines could be taken on time. He said that the whole work would be done by using advanced technology which would require minimum of road cutting as is being done during the construction of metro project.”

Several other works like smart city surveillance, expansion of CCTV network, underground parking at Globe Park and developing Avadh point at Begum Hazrat Mahal Park will also be undertaken as part of the project.

The LMC has also prepared a project for geometric improvement of roads and junctions of the area. “Development of pelican crossings for safe pedestrian movement and removing traffic bottlenecks is also on priority,” said an official.

Development of culture and heritage centre at Chattar Manzil and a cultural club at Roshan-ud-Daula Kothi will also be undertaken as part of the project.